School funding uncertainty: Districts attempt to plan budget for upcoming years

By JEFF GULLEYHerald Staff Writer

Saturday

Mar 31, 2018 at 5:15 AM

As state lawmakers grapple with question of how much state funding is adequate and where those funds will come from, area school districts are left to piece together plans for the next school year with uncertainty.

On March 15, an independent consultant told Kansas lawmakers that the state would need to increase school funding from $500 million to $2.1 billion over the next five years. The study was initiated after the Kansas Supreme Court found the state did not provide adequate and equitable funding.

Texas A&M University professor Lori Taylor presented the results of a study that looked at spending needs for K-12 education in the state. Taylor’s study considered enrollment numbers, regional economies and student demographics and found that the state would need to increase funding by a minimum of $500 million over the next five years. Two other scenarios suggested if the state wanted to reach 90 percent proficiency in math and reading, the increase would need to be around $1.8 billion, and to meet college-ready goals, the increase would need to be $2.1 billion.

“I had studied Dr. Taylor’s report that she did for the state of Texas and knew that there were some fundamental problems with some of the things that she suggested,” Dr. Jeanne Stroh, superintendent of Ottawa schools, said. “I was a bit concerned that some of those things might follow her here to Kansas. But as I went through her study and I read all of it I was very impressed with her methodology and very impressed with her findings. No doubt that number of $2.2 billion is probably accurate as far as getting Kansas students to the goals that we expect.”

“I think the timeline is probably important to look at. Dr. (Randy) Watson, our Kansas [education] commissioner, says that we want to do certain things by 2023 and other things by 2028, so he’s laid out a timeline. If you connect his timeline with the number of dollars, it makes a lot of sense.”

Wellsville superintendent Jerry Henn agreed and said he was surprised at the findings of the report.

“I expected them to say we needed more, but I did not expect those kinds of numbers,” he said. “That’s very positive on the school side but now it’s left in the hands of the legislators to really come up with what they need to come up with.”

According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Kansas school funding per student is down 9.9 percent since 2008. That pales in comparison to the 28.2 percent decrease in funding for students in Oklahoma. In 2009, the state’s aid per student peaked at $4,400. By 2012 it had been lowered to $3,780.

“Last year the intention was to increase base state aid, or foundational aid that it’s called now, per student by $128 and the court has said that is not a legal amount,” Stroh said. “Our LOB (Local Option Budget) is based on $4,492 (per student). So I feel like unless and until the Legislature gets close to $5,000 per student for foundational or base state aid, they are not going to hit the mark for the Supreme Court. And then when you put weightings on top of that, it bounces that dollar amount up quite a bit. So maybe that’s phased in over the next two, three or four years but I believe they are going to have to get that up more than $128 per student.”

Brian Spencer, Central Heights superintendent, was also surprised at the amount of additional funding the study called for but said when it is spread across the state and over five years, the numbers are not so staggering.

“I was in Topeka for the preliminary report that they did when they were still in their fact-finding, so from that conversation that day they certainly didn’t tip their hand to what they were going to find but those of us in education, we know that we don’t have the discretionary funds that we used to have,” he said. “We’ve all made cuts and it costs more to operate schools than the legislators think they should. We were leery of what was going to come out of that study simply because of the way the study was commissioned. Then when it came out, we were all quite surprised, but not surprised with the findings because it’s not the first study that’s been done.”

Taylor was paid $285,000 to conduct the study. Kansas lawmakers increased funding last year by $300 million but the Supreme Court ruled that was not enough. West Franklin superintendent Jerry Turner said he was not sure the study would get the state funding where it needs to be.

“The state spent a lot of our tax dollars for them to tell us what we should be getting but when you look at what we actually get there is a big variance,” he said.

Stroh said she believes the state is in a good position to hold funding steady or slightly increase it next year.

“State revenue is up by around $256 million and we are set to get a windfall from the federal government of about $156 million. In April, the revenue consensus team will meet to talk about what the projections are. I think we are in really good shape.”

EFFICIENCY

In addition to the funding question, Taylor’s report found that Kansas schools were doing the best they can with the resources given. The study showed that Kansas schools, on average, were operating at nearly 96 percent of their potential cost efficiency.

Just after the report was released, Kansas Association of School Boards president-elect and Lawrence school board president Shannon Kimball tweeted that this fact did not surprise her.

“Kansas education officials have been saying this for years,” Kimball tweeted. “Can we finally stop debating whether we are efficient enough and finally focus on doing what we need to do to support the educational needs of our kids?”

The report concluded that every state that ranks ahead of Kansas in student achievement spends more per pupil than Kansas. Henn said it shows that the district staff have their priorities in the right place.

“We have continued to do more and more on less and less,” Henn said. “I am very proud of our teachers, staff, board members and principals for how they have been business as usual on a daily basis. They have been fantastic and my hat is off to them for how hard they work to continue to do what’s right for kids, not knowing what’s right for kids from the state’s perspective.”

Spencer said the efficiency portion of the study should not be lost as the debate over funding continues.

“It was nice to have confirmation that we are being efficient,” he said. “We get beat up about that from some people, that we are not being efficient enough and that there are more things we could do. So it was nice to have confirmation that we are being good stewards of public money.”

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

School districts are already planning for next year not really knowing what their funding will look like. Spencer said Central Heights will wait as long as possible to set its budget but he knows there will have to be adjustments.

“We delay it as long as we can because it’s just difficult,” Spencer said. “You have a baseline but you have to budget by law whatever you spend so you if you don’t know what that number is going to be you know you will have to republish or your publishing off something you don’t know if your going to get so if people look at that and see the numbers before you get approval, it can cause some confusion. The uncertainty that we face is that you don’t feel good about planning.”

In Wellsville and West Franklin, plans are being made to hire much-needed additional staff. Both districts are banking on a small increase in funding and will have to make cuts if that does not happen.

West Franklin is adding a math teacher at the high school and Turner said the board is trying to do what is best for the district and the kids.

“I really don’t know what more we can do,” Turner said. “It really puts me in a Vegas mode. Our board has decided to add a staff member or two. We are rolling the dice and waiting to see if the additional funding comes through. We are planning like we will get the same amount as last year. We have to make judgement calls but we are trying to do the best for the kids.”

In Wellsville, Henn said the district is looking at adding a position because of need and is counting on funding at least holding steady from last year.

“Our money for next year that we have already been told we are going to have has been spent on a curriculum coordinator,” Henn said. “Our teachers support that as well. They know we need a curriculum person to move us forward.”

“It’s incredibly difficult to plan. It’s one of those things that you just can’t plan until you know what kind of money we have. We have gone out on a limb to hire a curriculum coordinator because we are in desperate need of curriculum in the district. The board has been very supportive, knowing we need to look at those types of positions to move forward in our district. They have been very proactive and I totally support what they are looking at doing in the next few years. I am very proud of that.”

TEACHERS PAY THE PRICE

As the districts strive to keep things running smoothly, funds to increase teacher salaries and pay staff a competitive wage gets pushed to the back burner, superintendents said.

Spencer said the building issues can often keep the district from getting more money to staff.

“We have other issues concerning upkeep of our buildings and we are facing this water issue, but those aren’t nearly as pressing as trying to treat your people right and do business,” he said.

In Ottawa, Stroh thinks funding will increase and if that happens, teacher salaries will be high on the list.

“With our bond project we have a very solid plan for maintenance so we don’t defer any kind of maintenance or those kinds of things,” she said. “I think if funding increases we will be able to do a lot more for our kids and for our staff.”

“The number one thing is hiring because we really need to hire some additional staff and when funding is up in the air we are reluctant to do that. We have set some priorities and our number one priority would be teacher raises and staff raises. That has to happen first but we can’t talk about money and raises until the Legislature comes up with something.”

Henn agreed that teacher salaries are one of the most pressing issues that the Wellsville district faces and hopes that an increase in funding will allow them to take care of teachers and purchase learning material that the district needs.

“Under the current funding system the teachers have to give up sizeable raises,” he said. “So we can’t support the teachers the way we would like to, We have to find extra money to do into the budget side for curriculum, for textbooks. All of those things are very important. We need to have those resources. If more money does come to us, we are going to be putting more money into curriculum so we can take care of the things we need to take care of to move us forward on the curriculum side”

At Central Heights, Spencer said he faces a problem trying to keep classified staff and offer a competitive wage.

“It was nice last year when some money did come in and we could put some money toward classified salaries,” he said. “I lost employees last year and I’ve lost employees this year but it hurts me personally when I lose a good paraprofessional to Sonic because they can pay more than we can pay. You can’t treat your people like you should and let them know help is on the way if you don’t know what you can do for them. Our classified staff at Central Heights is underpaid compared to those we are competing against, and there are not a lot of people for us to hire so when they can make more money driving the same distance, it’s difficult.”

The Supreme Court has told lawmakers to have a funding plan in place by the April 30 deadline and area schools hope it is in place as they set their 2018-19 budgets this summer.

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